Resumen de LONGITUDINAL METAGENOMICS
Culture-independent approaches are revolutionizing biology. Whether in a clinical or in an environmental sample, metagenomics can reveal which microorganisms exist and what they actually do. Metagenomic studies have unveiled more microbial diversity in a few years than traditional microbiology in centuries. From the top branches down to the roots, its discoveries are reshaping the tree of life dramatically.
Metagenomics is a powerful tool for the study of microbial communities, but it requires equally powerful methods of analysis. Current challenges in the analysis of metagenomic data include the accurate comparison of samples, the estimation of the uncertainty in the results, and the effective removal of contamination. The scarcer the microbes are in an environment, the more essential it is to have solutions for these issues. Examples of sites with few microbes come not only from oligotrophic habitats but also from many body tissues and fluids.
This PhD dissertation implements a novel approach to the dynamics of microbial communities studied by metagenomics. This has been achieved through the development of new techniques in the field of computational microbiology, with the support of statistical, mathematical, and parallel computational methods. That strategy was used to analyze clinical and environmental longitudinal metagenomic datasets. By removing multiple types of contamination and providing confidence levels for the results, we were finally able to unveil the dynamics of microbial communities in an efficient and robust manner.
